This Will, Of Course - Indubitably! - Take A While To Explain
Less of a theme and more of a concept, you might say. As you may be aware, there is a ceaseless struggle in Conrad's mind to create fresh content for BOOJUM! which is all the more difficult as I refuse to re-read old stuff, because to look backward is to die. Metaphorically. Otherwise a zombie would be writing what you see before you, which would be awful for the creative side of things if a boon on sheer word count. Art!
No! This is not a prototype for the vehicles of "Damnation Alley". It is, apparently, a prototype amphibious vehicle called the "Scorpion", as constructed by the Opperman Company, of Second Unpleasantness vintage. It was a rather speculative private venture that went nowhere, because DD tanks.
ANYWAY I was minded, via a whole lot of other rabbit holes leading to rabbit holes, of a sci-fi story called "The Quaker Cannon" by Frederick Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth. Conrad always found Mr. Pohl to be a bit of a hack, entertaining if shallow, but Ol' Cy possessed an unusual and intriguing imagination. Art!
TQC, as was often the wont back in Cold War days, had a plot that echoed the Cold War, with the Statele Unite versus the Sinistra Unire. The protagonist had been captured by the Other Side, and subjected to prolonged torment in their sensory deprivation pods - their 'Blank Tanks' if you like, in order to break them and learn their secrets. This, children, is how the Cold War armies viewed their opponents. Conrad still remembers how Lieutenant Kramer tried to cope with his isolation by creating a crossword in his head, and gang aft agley. It had to do with "ERNE". Art!
A erne
Of course, very little of this has to do with what I want to type, which is how and why we roll here, because Imperial measurements automatically trump Metric, and Sean Connery is always the best Bond.
ANYWAY we have introduced the concept of 'Blank', be it of mind. I would now like to introduce the more modern version, which involves computer hard drives. Forsooth, are we not talking about a Youtube Reddit Malicious Compliance vlog? Yes we are, in case you were wondering. Art!
OP stated that they were 'released early' or 'let go' from a contract, which in plain English means that they were not-quite-fired, just that their employer thought that they were superfluous to requirements and could be given the heave-ho. Please note that this decision was made by an idiot in middle management who never crosses the story's bounds; doubtless seeking to curry favour by pruning back on a £25,000 p.a. contract, the kind that Conrad works upon.
O my, here comes inept Human Resources, still able to walk after inserting both feet in mouth. They had terminated OP, meaning that all their server access from home had been disabled, so no mutual updating. They then insisted that OP delete ALL THEIR DATA because phones and laptops and tablets and so on had to be returned in factory-delivered format. OP, not being stupid, copied this instruction into an e-mail that went to the very highest in the land. Art!
This is an example of the most important principle you can ever observe in any organisation - Cover Your Bottom. The South Canadians have a shorter, more vulgar version.
FOR! six weeks after being <ahem> 'let go', the Managing Director contacted OP to ask where £8 million pounds-worth of data was.
Gone, explained OP, pointing to the e-mail trail that led directly back to the HR manager demanding that he delete three years of work files, with no back-up.
HR Manager was promptly fired. The recruitment company that supplied her was permanently removed from their list of approved suppliers. OP probably enjoyed a secret smirky celebratory drink.
Blank Ranks
Be advised that 99% of the support for Ruffia online is provided by bots, and 0.5% by idiots who think they're being dangerously edgy.
Well, one of the 0.5% in Romania decided to hold a huge protest meeting in the centre of Bucharest, with the support of 50,000 people who declared that they were going to march in sympathy, and they would bring 500 trucks to blockade the city centre. Art!
In case you skeptics think Conrad has cropped the picture to remove the teeming thousands of protestors, let me find a better picture. Art!
I have also seen an aerial drone shot that shows the event organiser being outnumbered by the obligatory police and paramedics in attendance. Can't find it now, of course - obviously!
Conrad thus calculates, if there is one actual genuine real physical pro-Russian per 50,000 Romanians, there are a total of 380 in the entire country.
The Numbers Not Lying
Conrad has, of late, been posting on Twitter far more frequently than usual. Not only that, I've compared my posts after having a snifter or two of gin, and being stonily sober, and there's no difference. I am equally acerbic and unpleasant whatever my condition. This reminds me of a response from Bruce, back in the Eighties, when I stated "I think I'm developing a horrid sense of humour" and he fired back "Developing?". Art!
Being unpleasant for traffic - a dirty job but someone's got to do it.
"City In The Sky"
Catastrophe has struck, as I always suspected it might. Ace and the crew aboard the 'Pangolin' are faced with hard choices. Meanwhile, down at New Eucla, Australia -
‘I don’t doubt it,’ muttered Mike. ‘I went to help at Forrest. I know what these things can do.’
‘Why ain’t they here already?’ asked Lenny, shrewdly.
The Doctor shrugged.
‘I don’t know. We ought to make
the most of this grace period, really.
And it isn’t just the Lithoi who pose a threat. I mentioned my “flyswatter” and if it works
the town ought to be evacuated outright.’
‘You still haven’t explained what you mean by that,’ commented one of
the elders. ‘Swatting flies.’
‘Oh, you’ll know when it happens.
Now – ah!’ exclaimed the Time Lord as an analogy struck him. ‘I take it you still play sports here in
South
That earned him a few puzzled stares.
‘American, soccer and Australian rules,’ said Lenny proudly.
‘You don’t let spectators onto the pitch, do you – no, of course
not. That’s what I want here – a few
volunteers to help keep the Lithoi busy when they turn up and prevent them from
following the evacuees. Every one else
will be gone, sailed away, so we have a clear playing field.’
This slightly strained explanation finally got the townsfolk
moving. The Timelord felt a little wry
amusement at his own expense, taking so long to come up with a persuasive way
of putting across the danger New Eucla was in when Ace would have managed it
with sheer ingenuousness and sincerity within thirty seconds.
Ace has her own problems, Doctor.
Pumpkinhead Strikes Again
With Donald Buck it's all about Me Me Me. He cannot bear to not be the centre of attention, and if he's not then he acts like a spiteful, petty 7 year-old, rather than the 77 year-old he is*.
SO it was no great surprise that he got up and left the civil defamation lawsuit brought against him by E Jean Carroll, before the closing statements, because 7 year-old. Art!
This is the BBC's News webpage, and you need to squint and concentrate to find out about what The Exercise Averse One was doing. Art!
All this, mind you, is before the jury reached a decision on how much to soak him for and teach him what an unsecured trap-door costs. We shall most certainly come back to that!
Finally -
I've already been out to secure fresh supplies of loose-leaf Darjeeling tea from Sainsbo's - Fairtrade obvs - and now need to take Edna for a trot, whilst the heavens are still not Uniform Grey Layer or teeming down.
Laterz!
* Must - resist - IQ - jokes
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